What Does a Drug For Cancer Have To Do With Macular Degeneration?

Wet AMD

What Does a Drug For Cancer Have To Do With Macular Degeneration? See the attached article.

If you have the "neovascular" or "wet" form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a drug called Avastin may be part of your treatment. This drug is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of certain types of colorectal and lung cancer. (The drug's scientific name is bevacizumab.) It was developed after one of the most important discoveries ever to be made in cancer research. Scientists discovered that not only do tumors depend on blood vessels to survive, but also that they have the power to generate new vessels, a process called "angiogenesis." Tumors have this power because their cells are able to produce specialized proteins, called growth factors, which trigger angiogenesis. One of the most important of these growth factors is "vascular endothelial growth factor," or VEGF.

Armed with this new information, scientists developed Avastin. This drug is anti-VEGF, meaning it binds to VEGF and prevents it from triggering the angiogenesis process. When VEGF is disabled in this way, it is unable to cause the growth of the new blood vessels that tumors need to survive and grow.

While wet AMD has nothing to do with cancer, it does share one of its traits: angiogenesis. The main feature of this type of AMD is the growth of new, abnormal blood vessels underneath the retina. The new vessels damage the retina and its most light-sensitive area, the macula. In macular degeneration, it is damage to the macula that is responsible for the deterioration of vision.

Knowing that cancer and AMD have angiogenesis in common, eye doctors were eager to have an anti-VEGF drug for their patients. In fact, two other drugs in this class, Lucentis (ranibizumab) and Macugen (pegaptanib sodium) were being studied specifically for AMD patients.

Hope for the future? New clinical trials.

NeoVista, Inc. is a company that is developing an intraocular epiretinal radiation device intended for the treatment of the wet form of age-related macular degeneration. If you, or someone you know, are interested in participating in the CABERNET Trial, please follow the link below:

Macular Degeneration

What Does a Drug For Cancer Have To Do With Macular Degeneration?

Hope for the future? New clinical trials.

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